If you put Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Peter Benchley’s Jaws, and Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” in a blender, the result would be something like Julia Armfield’s weird Our Wives Under the Sea.
The story is told in alternating chapters: Leah (a woman obsessed with the sea), tells her story in the form of a journal she kept on a disastrous deep-sea dive that stranded her and two others in undersea darkness; and that of her wife, Miri, who presumed her lost, after Leah’s return.
The tale travels, with Leah and the doomed submarine, down through the terrifying six months and the ocean’s vertical zones (sunlight, twilight, midnight, abyssal, hadal), while on land Miri tracks how their relationship is changing in the present.
As someone who is slightly claustrophobic, the prospect of being trapped on the bottom of the ocean in a tiny submarine freaks me out!
A six month hiatus with the prospect of death mixed in would not, even under the best circumstances, be easy for Leah and Miri to resume where they left off in their marriage. But Leah has also changed in fundamental and creepy ways–not surprising given the terrifying experience she had at the bottom of the sea–and Miri is forced into a reevaluation of their relationship.
If you’re in the mood for a quirky story of a eerie encounter that deals with the strange happenings under the sea and even stranger ones on land, you might want to give Our Wives Under the Sea a try. GRADE: B
So, does this tip into utter fantasy with a sub underwater for six months and yet breathable atmosphere in the boat?
A vaguely sinister cover can’t hurt…
Todd, there’s a hallucinogenic quality to OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA that might turn some readers off.
Sounds way too creepy for me. I agree with you about being stuck down there for six months.
Jeff, that’s one of the reasons I avoid tunnels and cellars and any underwater device. Too creepy for me, too!
EVery time I see someone crawling through a cave in a movie (or even thinking about it now!) I get too creeped out to watch, just thinking of what could happen.
Jeff, same here. Caves, tunnels, and enclosed places like submarines freak me out!
Good for you for taking a chance on an odd book. I should do that more often.
I prefer an elevator to an escalator. Small spaces over height, I guess.
Patti, the whole idea of being stuck under the sea for months sends chills down my spine!
Perhaps it’s just me—or perhaps there are only so many plots—but this sounds like a gender-swapped/opposite-direction version of Thomas Olde Heuvelt’s ECHO, in which a mountain climber is presumed dead in an accident during a climb or a dangerous mountain. When he is finally found, he’s alive but has severe injuries requiring him to be completely bandaged (including his face); and there is no trace of the person he went climbing with. When he returns home (still completely bandaged) to recuperate, his husband begins to realize that his spouse has “changed”—and not for the better:
https://www.amazon.com/Echo-Thomas-Olde-Heuvelt/dp/1250759560/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=TFWZANZOVR33&keywords=echo+thomas+olde+heuvelt&qid=1707057353&sprefix=thomas+olde%2Caps%2C121&sr=8-1
Wow, that does sound the same, down to the same sex marriage! Nice catch. Never heard of the book, though.
Jeff, Deb stuns us with her vast knowledge on a regular basis!
Deb, your summary of ECHO sounds a lot like OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA with some gender and environmental tweaks. Not a comfortable book to read for me…
This does sound like a very strange book. My husband has claustrophobia and I don’t think it would be a comfortable read for him, but I am with Patti. I cannot ride on a escalator and have to ride an elevator instead.
Tracy, I’ll travel on an escalator and an elevator…but only for short periods. I hate climbing stairs.